


Heart of Glass

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crying John, I am so sorry, Implied Johnlock, It's 3:00 In The Morning, Light Angst, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-Relationship, Sherlock's Grave, and my friend fell asleep, don't leave me to my own devices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 10:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7218049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John visits Sherlock's grave to give him some news...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart of Glass

John Watson stood under an oak tree that added a feeling of shelter from the downpour. He drew his coat in tighter around his waist and tried to stand on a high spot so the rain wouldn’t get his trouser legs wet. He hated when they got wet because they always took so long to dry. 

He looked around the empty cemetery and sighed loudly, even though no one could hear his obvious dismay for this day. He’d woken up to his alarm going off and for a moment, he was happy. And then he remembered everything. He remembered the fall. The blood on his forehead. The feel of his warm wrist without a pulse. The feeling of glass shards stabbing his heart in so many places that he knew they’d never come out. He remembered it all like it was yesterday. But he was used to that by now. He was used to the empty feeling in his heart when he sat at the kitchen table alone, eating his breakfast without the added banter over cases or occasional science experiment crowding the table. He was used to walking downstairs, prepared to tell Sherlock bye before he went off to work and remembering that Sherlock wasn’t there. He was used to walking to and from the clinic with his cane in hand. The sympathetic look of fans or former clients that plagued him. 

Not for the first time in his life, but for the first time in a while, John found himself wanting to be through with it. To disappear. Forever. To join Sherlock, wherever he is now. 

_But he lived on._

He got dressed every morning. He ate properly. He took care of himself as if Sherlock was still there. He looked twice before crossing any street and never took the first cab that pulled by because the first one could always be sent by someone else. He treated patients with a smile on his face even though they all knew what happened. It was all over London. He walked home in the afternoon and comforted Mrs Hudson with a small smile and collected his mail for the day. He sorted it out and placed the ones addressed to Sherlock on a stack on the table. He made tea and he carefully read all of the letters sent to him. Some were fanmail or sympathetic cards, while many were letters of hate. He would write out a careful response to every letter and give them to Mrs Hudson. It was his routine. 

_But today was different._

Today was the one-month anniversary of the fall, and John found that with each day it was becoming harder to keep up his smile and his personality. Today he broke. He found a flat. He was leaving Baker Street. Maybe he wouldn’t come back. But he had to tell Sherlock. He couldn’t just leave without telling him. John looked at his grave. 

“Sherlock Holmes”

Nothing personal. Nothing about his career, personality, friends, nothing. The grave of a soldier, except for the name. John found himself chuckling despite the pain it brought just to look at the headstone. Sherlock had always been such a unique man that seeing him like this, simple suit, simple casket, six feet under with just his name on a stone made John laugh. 

“You would be appalled to see what you are now.” He spoke to Sherlock because no one would hear it anymore. No one would care. “At least I’m not carrying a skull around and calling it my friend. Though I could probably steal yours and nobody would stop me.”John chuckled to himself through the tears that threatened to begin a steady stream at the corner of his eyes. 

He watched as rain made the mud and plants more slippery and finally John gave up. He leaned against the oak tree and sank into a crouch as his emotions boiled over the edge. His tears flooded his cheeks and his breaths turned into ragged sobs of pain. He felt every shard of glass in his heart etch itself deeper into his soul. 

He knew how Sherlock would look at him as he cried. He would look at the grave and then to John and smirk as if he had a secret that John didn’t know. He would nudge John and tell him that it’s just piece of a stone, nothing to cry over. He would point out how undignified it was for a soldier to cry in front of the grave a friend, he must have lost better men in war. 

He pulled himself together as much as he could and he pulled a frame out of his coat pocket and placed it in front of the grave. It showed the clever detective smiling at John and John staring back at him as a friend took a picture. John remembered the case and he smiled to himself. Sherlock had solved it after a couple days of adventure and frustration. He’d been so proud of himself that when the Yard took them out to dinner he hadn’t bothered to acknowledge Sally or Anderson. Instead he had focused on John and explaining how he’d gotten to the conclusion that he did. John cleaned off the glass and dried his tears. He sat on a branch beside the grave that protruded up enough so that it could be used as a small seat. 

“I’ve found a flat, Sherlock.”

_You don’t need a flat. We have 221b. We live together._

John stared at the mud as he spoke and he pretended Sherlock was listening. 

“I can’t live there anymore. I can’t live with your ghost anymore.”

_John…_

“Please let me go.”

John sat and waited for the voice in his head to respond, but as if Sherlock was actually listening, it stopped. He could picture Sherlock on his knees in front of John, tears streaming down his cheeks because his friend was leaving. John turned his head from the sight and shook it from his mind. 

He fumbled in his coat pocket until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out his mobile phone and shakily opened it up to his blog. He leaned against the headstone and started to read. 

“29th of January. ‘A Strange Meeting’.”

John read his first ever blog post about Sherlock to the headstone. As he read his voice began to crack and his tears began to fall again. 

“Me and Sh-Sherlock Holmes.”

John’s voice broke into broken sobs and he held his phone close to his chest as he realized, not for the first time since the fall, that he loved Sherlock Holmes.

He realized that he loved Sherlock since the first moment they met. He’d been trying to rationalize it to himself. ‘You’re not in love, you’re lonely and broken’, but he couldn’t stop. He cried about waiting so long to realize it. 

“I’m so sorry, Sherlock. May..Maybe if I had said when you were on the rooftop, I could have changed your decision...Maybe if I had loved you when I could have…”

He choked down the sobs that threatened to erupt and he closed his eyes, feeling the fatigue from the nightmares every night. He cleared his throat and settled against the stone. 

“I love you, Sherlock Holmes.”

And as he fell asleep John swore he heard the softest of whispers coming from the trees and the wind that whispered back to him.

“I love you, John.”

\---

When he woke up he saw that the rain had lightened up and he was now using the scarf that had been in his pocket as a pillow against the stone. It was Sherlock’s scarf. It was sprinkled with his blood but it was the only thing Mycroft allowed him to keep, so he carried it everywhere. He stood and blinked away the eye crust that had formed around his eyes from crying and frowned. The frame that he had set down earlier was missing and there was no sign of anyone having been by while he was asleep. 

John shrugged and patted the headstone awkwardly before turning and walking away, leaving his cane by the grave.


End file.
